Man Asian Literary Prize website and entry form

The Celebration of Women Writers is developed in collaboration with the On-Line Books Page, edited by John Mark Ockerbloom.

Statement of Purpose:

The Celebration of Women Writers recognizes the contributions of women writers throughout history. Women have written almost every imaginable type of work: novels, poems, letters, biographies, travel books, religious commentaries, histories, economic and scientific works. Our goal is to promote awareness of the breadth and variety of women’s writing.

All too often, works by women, and resources about women writers, are hard to find. We attempt to provide easy access to available on-line information. The Celebration provides a comprehensive listing of links to biographical and bibliographical information about women writers, and complete published books written by women. (See What’s New! for the most recent authors and books added to the listing.)

We are also actively involved in extending those resources. A major focus of the Celebration is the development of on-line editions of older, often rare, out-of-copyright works. We choose works from a range of areas to indicate the variety of interests of women writers. (See “What’s Local!” By Author or By Category for a listing of books and biographical information made available on-line by the Celebration of Women Writers.)

The Celebration of Women Writers links to a wide variety of on-line resources, most of them at other sites. Sites for writers groups include biographical pages for members as well as useful resources and contacts. Academic and special-interest sites focus on particular groups, often both men and women. There is lots of interesting information out there, in addition to the biographies and books that are the focus of the Celebration. Explore further in our list of Specialty Collections.

While the primary focus of the Celebration is to link to resources in English, we hope to make people more aware of the rich variety of writers who come from other countries, many of sex indian whom write in other languages. Their works are often widely translated and read. Writers who lived in more than one country may be included in multiple listings. A writer who lived primarily in one country, but wrote works relevant to another country, may also be listed under both.

In some cases, authors who live in a particular country may be identifiable as members of an ethnic subgroup. In other cases, members of an ethnic group may live in more than one country. Listings by ethnic group are a new addition to the Celebration, so our information is currently quite limited. If you know of writers who should be identified as members of these groups, please let us know.

To receive announcements of the titles being published by the Celebration of Women Writers, email me at and ask to be added to the BUILD-A-BOOK mailing list.

To discuss on-line books, archives, and related issues such as copyright law, join the BookPeople Mailing List, sponsored by the Celebration of Women Writers and the On-Line Books Page.

Donate Information:

You can help by sending us information, including URLs for on-line books, author resources, and archives that we don’t list. You can also help by pointing out errors and corrections in the On-line Books Page and the Celebration of Women Writers pages.

The basic format for listing an author includes the author’s name, pseudonyms, birth and death dates, and country of origin. I’m always happy to list new published authors. I am also delighted to link to on-line information: just send me the URL for the relevant page. However, I don’t have the resources (in terms of either time or space) to create and maintain “about the author” pages in response to other information that people send me.

Email Mary ( celebration@pobox.upenn.edu ) with information for the Celebration of Women Writers.

Donate Time:

If you’re interested in putting a book on-line, we provide information pages on Selecting A Book and on Transcribing and Proofreading. Relevant issues when selecting a book include getting ideas for possible authors and titles and determining the copyright status of a book. A list of some of the books which people are working on is available c/o of the On-Line Books Page. The Transcribing and Proofreading pages describe the work involved, and discuss some of the most common errors and problems that occur. We request that you check with us before working on and submitting a book. That way we can tell you if it is already online, or under copyright, or would not be suitable for inclusion on the site for some other reason, before you invest time and energy working on it.

In previous years, we developed editions collaboratively through the BUILD-A-BOOK initiative. Unfortunately, we will not be running BUILD-A-BOOK this year. It is a very time-consuming project to coordinate, and for several reasons, I felt I could not commit to the amount of time it requires this year. You can see the Build-a-Books completed in the 1997-1998, 1998-1999, 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 seasons. They may give you ideas about possible authors or types of books to work on privately.

Donate Books:

Obviously, one of the resources we need is books. We look for older, out-of-copyright works, not necessarily in perfect condition. We are particularly interested, at present, in finding early works by Canadian women writers, and illustrated children’s books from before 1920.
If you have a copy of something that you would like to see on-line, and would be willing to donate a book to us (NOT lend), please email us. Let us know the title, author, and any printer, year, or copyright information indicated in the edition, so that we can check the copyright status and determine whether it’s something we can potentially use. [Please note: we can’t make any guarantees about when or if a particular book will go on-line if you send it to us.]

You can also make it possible for us to acquire a particular book for on-line development, by donating money to pay for a copy of the book. Books that we would like to acquire for the Celebration include Six Months in Mexico by Nellie Bly. New York: John W. Lovell, 1886. Gardening by Myself by Anna B. Warner. (Randolph, NY, 1872.) Stories of Enchantment or the Ghost Flower by Jane Pentzer Myers (Chicago: McClurg, 1901) The Fairies and the Christmas Child by Lilian Gask (1912) Six Years Residence in Algiers by Elizabeth Broughton (London: Saunders and Otley. 1839) The Bride’s Fate by Eden Southworth (Philadelphia : T.B. Peterson, ca. 1869) You can also ADOPT-A-BOOK that has already been completed, or is in progress, by sending a donation of $20.00 or more.

Whenever development of an on-line edition is made possible by donation of a book, or a donation of money which enables us to buy a particular book, we will credit the donor in our on-line edition.